Tag: emergency fund

We see the word “emergency fund” thrown around in personal finance. Professionals usually disagree on their use and how much money we should have in one. A lot of people also disagree on where to store it (hint: not under your mattress). In this post, I am going to try to address these questions from the perspective of financial independence. Specifically, I am going to address the following questions:

What is an emergency fund?

What isn’t an emergency fund?

How much money should you have in it?

Where to keep your emergency fund?

Before diving in, I want you to understand something important. This is an opinion post. Ultimately, your definition of “emergency” will differ from mine. I follow a very strict set of guidelines for my emergency fund, but it doesn’t mean you have to. With that, let’s dive in!

Welcome to another post in my Financial Independence Update series! If you don’t know what the purpose of this series is, please read this first. This month, I am covering July of 2018.

I want to follow this particular format in these posts:

Main Goal(s). This will talk about my main financial goal(s) that I set out for the particular time period.

Ups and Downs. This will be a general reflection of what went well, what did not go well, and some improvements I am looking to make.

Financial Picture. This is not a net worth update. In this section, I will talk about how I deployed my cash in a way that improved my financial situation and why I did it the way that I did.

LookingForward. In this last section, I will talk about what I plan on doing going forward. This can include how I plan on deploying cash, any changes in my strategy, or any significant expected changes in my financial situation in general.

Before diving in, I just want to give you a heads up on what you are going to read. This month, the main focus was experiencing life a bit more than usual. My wife and I had some profound conversations about money and life, which was reflected in July’s overall spending. I’ll explain more below!